The emergence of the Internet as a major source of information and/or communication for many consumers has led to the development of numerous business, service, and/or product review and rating systems. The use of review and rating systems has also expanded into many areas beyond the Internet and traditional businesses, services, and/or products so that virtually any type of content, such as, but not limited to: ideas; articles; books; videos; links; pictures; applications; systems; shared documents and/or presentations, etc. can now include associated review and rating systems. Herein the term “review and rating system” includes, but is not limited to: websites devoted to, or at least including, business, service, and/or product review and rating systems as well as review and rating systems associated with other content such as: ideas; articles; books; videos; links; pictures; applications; systems; shared documents and/or presentations, or any other item or content to be rated and/or reviewed.
A typical review and rating system provides a review forum, and/or ratings system, and/or recommendation service, whereby contributors/users can share their opinions of given content with other viewers/users. Often, these review and rating systems are provided as either the primary focus of a given website, such as a consumer watchdog or consumer report website, or as a feature of a website devoted to other purposes, such as the sale of various products and/or services or an on-line auction.
In addition, many review and rating systems provide a cumulative score or overall rating associated with a given business, service, product, or other content. Typically this cumulative score or overall rating is simply the average of all the individual ratings received that are associated with a given business, service, product, or other content.
One indicator of the increasing presence, and importance, of review and rating systems is the fact that the number of review and rating systems associated with specific businesses and/or products doubled from 2006 to 2007. In addition, it is estimated that 98% of consumers now use the ratings and/or review data contained in one or more review and rating systems to guide their purchasing decisions. Consequently, review and rating systems have considerable, and seemingly ever increasing, power in both the electronic commerce and “brick and mortar” marketplaces.
One issue associated with currently available review and rating systems is that, currently, once a review and/or rating is entered into the review and rating system, it remains listed for extended periods of time, often in perpetuity, and is basically static, as is it's contribution to the cumulative score or overall rating associated with a given business, service, product, or other content. That is to say, using currently available review and rating systems, once a review and/or rating is entered, it often remains in the rating and review system long beyond the point that it is actually relevant to existing content and often long after the basis of a reviewer's comments are no longer valid or applicable.
As a result of this static nature of currently available review and rating systems, users of the review and rating systems may be given false and/or irrelevant impressions and information with respect to a current version of a given business, service, product, or other content being rated. This is clearly a less than ideal situation for all parties involved, i.e., the user, the provider of the review and rating system, and the owner/provider of the given business, service, product, or other content.